Wet cleansing wipes are well known, and are often referred to as wet wipes, towelettes, and the like. Wet wipes include a substrate, such as a nonwoven web, wet with a cleaning lotion. The lotion can be an aqueous lotion, and may include skin conditioning ingredients.
Wet wipes find use at home or away from home, especially as an aid for cleaning children and infants. For example, wipes are often used to clean an infant's skin during a diaper change. As well, wet wipes find use among adults, often in conjunction with the use of incontinence articles. Other uses of wet wipes include general cleaning tasks where soap, cloths, and running water may be unavailable, unsuitable, or inconvenient for a particular task. In almost all instances, wet wipes are provided as folded, stacked, sheets of disposable wipes, each wipe meant for one-time use. Wet wipes are often referred to as disposable wet wipes.
Historically various types of nonwoven webs have been utilized for use as disposable wet wipes. The various types of nonwovens differ in visual and tactile properties, usually due to the particular production process used in their manufacture. In all cases, however, consumers of disposable wipes, particularly those used as baby wipes, demand softness and flexibility in addition to other functional attributes such as protection against soiling a caregiver's hands and cleaning ability. Softness and flexibility can be correlated to certain measurable physical parameters, but perceived softness is often more subjective in nature, and consumers often react to visual and tactile properties in their assessment of wet wipes.
For example, The Procter & Gamble Co. markets PAMPERS® disposable wipes, that use a nonwoven substrate which is manufactured via a spunlace process and embossed with a decorative pattern. The nonwoven web has a dry basis weight of about 58 to 62 gsm. This spunlaced web provides a low elastic modulus (on the order of 30-50 N/m). The combination of low elastic modulus and appropriate fiber choice give these wipes superior inherent softness. These disposable wipes have enjoyed significant commercial success. Wipe substrates having decorative embossments are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,361,784.
While such decoratively embossed spunlace-produced wet wipes are quite successful in the marketplace, improvements are still needed. For example, substrate materials with a basis weight substantially lower than the 58-62 gsm materials in current use have satisfactory integrity to provide reliable hand protection when used as a wipe substrate. However, consumers may perceive the reduced basis weight materials as too flimsy. Said another way, the hand of such wipe substrates results in a tactile signal to the user that the wipe is weak and may fail with a resulting lack of protection during the cleaning task.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a material, suitable for use as a wet wipe substrate, that combines the visual and tactile aesthetic appeal of embossed high basis weight wet wipes with the improved value of reduced basis weight.